Chelsea Clinton’s engagement to Marc Mezvinsky is big news; Ruth Abrams’ blog post here yesterday was picked up by the Atlantic’s blog, the Atlantic Wire. Ruth said it would be interesting to see how the famous couple handles the interfaith aspects of their relationship. One aspect of that of course is whether they will want
Birthright Israel, Jewish Wedding Ceremonies, and Jewish Commitment
Tucked away in the new Birthright Israel study released yesterday by the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis is a very important discussion about Jewish wedding ceremonies and Jewish commitment among intermarried couples. (I discussed the main findings of the study in a separate post.) The study authors write: “Marrying a Jewish person
Birthright Israel Trips and Intermarriage
There is important learning in the new Birthright Israel study released yesterday by Len Saxe and his team at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis – and early media coverage is not catching all of it. The study compares Birthright Israel trip participants to non-participants. It finds that trip participants have a
Slingshot
We’re very proud and pleased to announce that for the fifth year in a row, InterfaithFamily.com has been included in Slingshot: A Resource Guide For Jewish Innovation. The Slingshot guide is “an annual compilation of the 50 most inspiring and innovative organizations, projects, and programs in the North American Jewish community today.” It’s very prestigious,
What Israelis–and Americans?–need to know about intermarriage in North America
Yesterday the Jerusalem Post published an op-ed I wrote, What Israelis need to know about intermarriage in North America. About a month ago I blogged about the MASA “Lost Jews” ad campaign, which implied that all of the 50% of young Jews outside of Israel who intermarried were assimilated and “lost.” This is a common
Worth Reading: More Talk About Intermarriage
Just a quick post about two important discussions about intermarriage. In the current issue of the Forward, Adam Bronfman debates Jack Wertheimer in Straight Talk About Assimilation: An Exchange. Adam is the managing director of the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, one of InterfaithFamily.com’s leading funders, and we continue to applaud his outspoken leadership on our issues.
A Stupid, Ill-conceived Approach from Israel
Yesterday Ha’aretz reported that MASA, which it describes as “an organization that works to strengthen ties between Israel and Diaspora Jews,” had “launched a scare-tactic campaign that urges Israelis to combat assimilation in North America by working to prevent the “loss” through intermarriage of their own Jewish acquaintances. This has got to be the most
Even in Canada
Back in January I was contacted by a staff member of the United Israel Appeal Federations Canada (UIA) who was researching international best practices for outreach to underserved members of Jewish communities, including interfaith couples. I gave her a lot of information about outreach programs in the US. I remember thinking at the time that
More Secular? Or More Spiritual?
There were a number of articles and comments on the Internet last week about a new report from the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey to the effect that the number of American Jews who consider themselves religiously observant has declined by more than 20 percent over the last two decades while the number of Jews
Rabbinical School and Interfaith Marriage, Part 3
A new article in Tablet, Big Tent Country by Marissa Brostoff, sheds some light on the issue of rabbinical schools accepting and ordaining intermarried rabbis. We blogged about this issue three months ago, when New Voices published an important article, The Coming of the Intermarried Rabbi. At the time, I wrote that “there could be